About FRC Team 3100 – The Lightning Turtles

Who Are We?

We are a 10-year-old, 35-student, coed FRC team, with 15 mentors stemming from companies such as Ecolab, Mayo Clinic, and 3M. Driven to bring out the potential in each of our members, we offer each student opportunities in Computer-Aided-Design(CAD), Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Programming, Entrepreneurship, and Professional Communications…

Robotics is an after-school-based team program designed to teach students real-world technology-based and problem-solving skills. The program uses a combination of mentor-provided expertise as well as guidance, rules, and competitions provided by the international FIRST program.

The FIRST program – in its 30th year – provides exceptional opportunities and over $80M in college scholarships otherwise inaccessible outside of FIRST.

Impact on Our Members

Members on our team have been impacted greatly by the FIRST Robotics program, learning skills that will benefit their future and motivating them to excel and become confident in their talents.

We encourage each of our members to work with the core values of FIRST in mind – Gracious Professionalism, and Coopertition.

With Gracious Professionalism, fierce competition and mutual gain are not separate notions. Gracious professionals learn to become skilled competitors, but yet treat one another with respect, kindness, and sportsmanship in the process. It is all about humility, appreciation, and selflessness.

In the long run, Gracious Professionalism is part of pursuing a meaningful life. One can add to society and enjoy the satisfaction of knowing one has acted with integrity and sensitivity.

Coopertition produces innovation. At FIRST, Coopertition is displaying unqualified kindness and respect in the face of fierce competition. Coopertition is founded on the concept and a philosophy that teams can and should help and cooperate with each other even as they compete.

Coopertition involves learning from teammates. It is teaching teammates, it is learning from Mentors, and it is managing and being managed. Coopertition means competing always, but assisting and enabling others when you can.

Made up of both new and veteran students, our veterans and youth captains are enthusiastic to give back and train the new team members to be future leaders (captains and division leads) on the team. All these are evidence of impact – far more meaningful than scores and awards achieved for building a highly competitive robot.

Spreading The Word

In the off-season, we dedicate our efforts to promoting the FIRST Robotics program elsewhere and making lasting connections with our community. We have visited middle schools in our district on multiple occasions and promoted FRC during fundraisers, school events, and throughout our community with the intention of inspiring more students and their families to support, and to immerse themselves in a program that benefits our future.

Through our highly increased levels of effort dedicated to outreach over the past 2 years, our team size has quadrupled in size as a result and is projected to grow even further in years to come.

We have also partnered with several schools who also have robotics programs, with the intention of establishing a tight-knit community of capable, motivated students that all share the same interests and can help each other in building their skills, and going above and beyond what they ever thought they were capable of.